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Archive for November 15th, 2012

Nov 15

germany_cleancoal_plant

Even more problems for Germany — Coping with energy transition

Hat tip to Small Dead Animals

WNN (World Nuclear News) — November 14, 2012

EOn continues to struggle under German energy policy, with gas generation made “barely profitable” by pro-renewable market arrangements and nuclear generation slashed and taxed by government decree.

The utility has summarised its performance from January to the end of September, explaining to shareholders that it would honour dividend predictions for 2012, but would revise ambitions for 2013 and 2015. Despite a worsening outlook, the company still recorded pre-tax earnings of €8.8 billion ($11.2 billion) with ‘underlying net income’ of about €4 billion ($5.0 billion) for the first nine months of 2012.

One problem is that renewable generation is given priority access to the grid when it is available. This sometimes prevents gas-fired generation from operating during peak hours and has altered the economics of gas to such an extent that it is now “barely profitable to operate,” said CEO Johannes Teyssen. “In most European markets, the gross margin for gas-fired units is approaching zero or is indeed already negative.”

“Paradoxically, this benefits carbon-intensive lignite-fired assets which are more harmful to the earth’s climate, whereas flexible, climate-friendlier assets are barely profitable,” said Teyssen.

Moreover, the company does not benefit from good enough renewable performance to balance this negative effect of the energy transition. Despite the issue outlined above, oil, gas and coal produced 61% of EOn’s power generation and brought in €1.2 billion (69%) of pre-tax earnings from generation. Renewables produced 11% of power, but reported an operating loss of €67 million that actually reduced pre-tax earnings by 3%.

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Nov 15

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Chatham-Kent — Conservatives Talk Wind turbines

Dave Richie — Blackburn News — November 15, 2012

Provincial and federal Conservative representatives in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex are continuing to fight back against wind projects.

MPP Monte McNaughton is still calling for a hold on the construction of turbines, saying there’s more than just possible adverse health effects associated with the projects.

“It is now being shown that the presence of wind turbines has an adverse effect on property values,” says McNaughton. “It is certainly proven that the presence of wind turbines has an adverse effect on relationships between neighbours.”

MP Bev Shipley says Premier Dalton McGuinty has placed a moratorium on off-shore projects, meaning there’s no reason he can’t do the same for onshore.

Nov 15

earth warming
1 Comment

Global Warming and Climate Change are back on the topic menu. And of course, governments are looking at it as an excuse for a Carbon Tax.

Benjamin Gaul — The Guardian — November 18, 2012

Why are we still even having this conversation? Oh yeah; billions of dollars in grants and taxes, taken from an unsuspecting public and given tax-free to the Wizards of Smart who keep the lie going, annually. Silly question. Let me rephrase that.

How can governments around the world continue to harp about a problem which only exists in Computer Models, in the face of all the Real World data which completely refutes said Computer Modeling?

OK, so nobody told you there was credible, verifiable data out there which debunks the whole myth of Global Warming / Climate Change. And if it’s ever brought up, it’s only to be laughed at as some wild conspiracy theorist nut-job making unsubstantiated claims. Or that the 31,487 scientists who signed the Global Warming Petition must ALL be in pay of Big Oil, they are scientists of the wrong fields or they don’t actually exist. None of them. But all the people who tell you that, fail to mention that research is big business, which is most often driven by ideology.

The scientists who know how to write the grants, get the money.

A 2005 study in the science journal Nature, surveyed 3247 US researchers who were all publicly funded by the National Institutes of Health, which is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. HHS is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research, and consists of 27 separate institutes and centers. Out of the 3247 scientists questioned, 503 admitted to altering design, methodology or results of their studies, because of pressure from their funding source. And those were just the scientists willing to be honest.

The trick for getting the Grant money seems to lay in what your study purports to discover. Lets say you wanted to study the dietary habits of the Red Tailed Squirrel of the Sierra Nevada mountains. You could title your grant proposal thus: “A study of the dietary habits of the Red Tailed Squirrel of the Sierra Nevada mountains.” Which makes perfect sence.

But you’re competing against another scientist whose title is “A study of the effects of Global Warming and Climate Change on the dietary habits of the Red Tailed…” You get the point. Both surveys will gather the exact same data, but only one of them forwards the current political mindset. Guess which study will get funded.

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Nov 15

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Head of the German Energy Agency calls their Renewable Energy Act “Pure Insanity”

Der Spiegel — November 15, 2012

Stephan Kohler, the head of the German Energy Agency, says the country must act smarter and more realistically in its transition to renewable energy. The “feel-good” subisides for locally produced wind and solar power have had unintended consequences, he says, and the envirnomental movement is often part of the problem.

SPIEGEL:Mr. Kohler, according to the government’s plans, the last German nuclear power plant will go offline in 2022. What will the domestic power supply look like at that point?

Kohler:It will be interesting. It’s easy to shut down a nuclear power plant, but that doesn’t mean you have something to replace it with. We know today, for example, that we don’t have enough reliable power plant capacity in southern Germany to be able to offset the loss of nuclear energy.

SPIEGEL: Solar and wind aren’t enough?

Kohler: According to the generally accepted opinion, the transition to renewable energy sources means that we will give up nuclear power and rely on wind and solar instead. The reality is that we’ll need conventional power plants until at least 2050, even if we do create massive renewable energy sources. Many people dispute this. They say that we could replace power plants operated with fossil fuels by adding more renewable energy sources. My response to them is: It won’t work.

SPIEGEL: What’s the problem?

Kohler: When a new wind farm is opened and we’re told how many thousands of households it can supply with electricity, that number applies to only a quarter of our demand. In Germany, 75 percent of electricity goes to industry, for which a secure supply — that is, at every second, and with constant voltage — is indispensable. Neither solar nor wind power are suitable for that purpose today. Both fluctuate and provide either no secure supply or only a small fraction of a secure supply. Solar energy has a load factor of about 1,000 hours a year. But there are 8,670 hours in a year.

SPIEGEL: But on some days solar power is already enough to supply all of Germany with electricity.

Kohler: Photovoltaic systems are distributed across hundreds of thousands of small power plants, which sounds nice. But when the sky is blue over Germany, these hundreds of thousands of decentralized plants act like a single, large power plant. All of the sudden we have 30,000 megawatts coming into the grid, which, in many cases, we can’t use.

SPIEGEL: Is that so dramatic? It’s better to have a surplus than a shortage.

Kohler: I don’t want to bore you with the details, but a surplus and fluctuations lead to very unpleasant systemic effects. We have voltage fluctuations within the grid that create problems for industry. Or we overload the grids in neighboring countries. Poland is in the process of installing technical equipment to protect its grids by keeping out surplus German electricity.

SPIEGEL: So far the prognoses that anticipated possible blackouts during peak load times have not come true. Weren’t the concerns, including yours, exaggerated?

Kohler: We were lucky in the winter of 2012. By 2015, we will manage to secure the current power supply with old power plants. Then a number of large power plants in southern Germany will gradually go offline, starting with Grafenrheinfeld in Bavaria. If we don’t act very quickly now, the reality will show us that we face real problems.

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